Donne was one of the Metaphysical Poets of the late 16th/early 17th centuries; he is often considered the founder of that school of English verse. This is how I was introduced to him, at any rate, when I was a public school student. I would be a teenager before anyone bothered to tell me [or I bothered to discover myself] that he was also a priest in the Church of England whose highest office was that of dean of St. Paul's Cathedral in London.

Our clergy had a noble and nimble history in the arts and the intellectual life once upon a time. While there are still pockets of resistance to contemporary educational trends, the bulk of our academic attention is now claimed in more facile disciplines. Oh, well, nowadays we'll have to let a strongly worded letter to the editor or online comments about the Tea Party or gun owners suffice as our literary effort.

A Hymn to God, the Father
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.

I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.

Almighty God, the root and fountain of all being: Open
our eyes to see, with your servant John Donne, that whatever has any being is a
mirror in which we may behold you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and
reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

It was one of those occasions, routine and familiar in the workings of both the Church of England and the Royal Courts. At the beginning of each annual session, judges, barristers, solicitors, and other court officials would gather for a service in the chapel at the Inns of Court and listen to a sermon on the topic of justice. Generally, this sermon was not at all memorable.

On July 14, 1833, The Rev. John Keble, chair of poetry at Oxford University and the author of a very popular collection of poetry entitled The Christian Year, was invited to give the “Assize Sermon”. While some may have been blithely looking forward to a sermon of some intelligence and even lyricism, a note of its title, “National Apostasy”, may have given them some clue as to what was to follow.

Remarkably, Keble, a clergyman of careful articulation and pastoral bearing, denounced both the nation and the leadership of the Church of England for turning away from God and coming to regard the Church as a mere institution of society, rather than as the prophetic voice of God. The sermon caused a tremendous sensation.

So sensational, that Keble’s fellow ordained Oxford dons, a group that included John Henry Newman, the vicar of the university’s church, and Edward Bouverie Pusey, professor of Hebrew at Christ Church, joined together to continue the address of this serious issue and to aid the return of more devotional elements in theology and the sacrament and boost the intellectual muscularity in common spirituality. This became known in Anglican history as The Oxford Movement.

The Oxford Movement’s rallying point was what was known as “Branch Theory”, which understands that Anglicanism, along with Eastern Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism, form three branches of one catholic Church. Correspondingly, most of the Movement’s leaders included in their practice traditional liturgy and the non-verbal aspects of worship in absence of which the Church had become rather plain. Thus, there was a return to the so-called “high church” practices that are found in the stronger communities within the Anglican Communion to this day.

This was not a popular notion to the leadership of the Church of England. In true episcopal fashion, Keble, Newman, and Pusey were all subjected to some form of punishment for their efforts. Keble was banished to a parish in Hampshire. Pusey was forbidden from preaching for five years. Newman became so alienated that he "swam the Tiber" and became a Roman Catholic priest, and eventually a cardinal. The students of the dons were largely denied positions in the church, thus forcing them to find ramshackle ministries in either the slums of London or in the less savory portions of the British Empire.

However, the Oxford Movement was not so easily suppressed. The zeal of the dons' students, fueled as it was by their sense of employment injustice and the bureaucratic martyrdom of their favorite professors, was fed into a variety of organizations dedicated to addressing issues of social inequality, especially the seminal Christian Social Union. They saw to it that the Anglican Church, once again, became prophetic in British society.

Elements of the Oxford Movement may be seen in our own practices, too. The fact that we celebrate the Holy Eucharist as our principle liturgy, that clergy wear vestments, and that men and women are welcome in Holy Orders all grow from the writings and practices of those early academicians.

“In the end, it is our defiance that redeems us. If wolves had a religion – if there was a religion of the wolf – that it is what it would tell us.”
― Mark Rowlands, The Philosopher and the Wolf: Lessons from the Wild on Love, Death, and Happiness

[Remember that there has never been an act of defiance greater than the one realized on Easter morning. It is one thing to defy Temple authority, or Roman bullying, or Satanic coercion; it is at a whole new aspect of redemption that requires defying mortality itself. - Me.]

“I take literally the statement in the Gospel of John that God loves the world. I believe that the world was created and approved by love, that it subsists, coheres, and endures by love, and that, insofar as it is redeemable, it can be redeemed only by love. I believe that divine love, incarnate and indwelling in the world, summons the world always toward wholeness, which ultimately is reconciliation and atonement with God.”
― Wendell Berry, The Art of the Commonplace: The Agrarian Essays

"I return to a point that I have made elsewhere in writing about student encounters with Richard Wagner and H. G. Wells. Contemporary college students are not stupid, but they are often far more ignorant than they need to be, having been ill-served both by the jejuneness of North American K-12 and by the ideological tendentiousness, verbal abstruseness, and hackneyed content, of the postmodernity under which the majority of their college preceptors have also been educated. Given patient, orderly instruction, and, more importantly, the opportunity to confront non-trivial ideas and rich objects of aesthetic contemplation, they are capable of initiating independent thought and of enriching their notions of art, literature, and the world."

My relationship with mainstream Protestantism is beginning to remind me of what one would have with a high school girlfriend after graduating and going off to different colleges. We still have an affection but our interests have changed and, thus, so has our relationship. The Episcopal Church is an organization of verbal, not always practical, socio/political advocacy, and I've become much more interested in the metaphysical.

"Christians have children, in great part, in order to be able to tell our children the story. Fortunately for us, children love stories. It is our baptismal responsibility to tell this story to our young, to live it before them, to take time to be parents in a world that (though intent on blowing itself to bits) is God’s creation (a fact we would not know without this story). We have children as a witness that the future is not left up to us and that life, even in a threatening world, is worth living—and not because “Children are the hope of the future,” but because God is the hope of the future."

- Stanley Hauerwas, from Resident Aliens: Life in the Christian Colony

Monday, March 24, 2014

"I’ve just spent a very depressing afternoon looking through the leading music periodicals. And what did I learn? Pretty much what I expected. I found out what the chart-topping musicians are wearing (or, in many instances, not wearing). I got updates on their love life, and learned whose marriages are on the rocks. I read updates on the legal proceedings of the rich and famous. I got insights into the food preferences and travel routines of megastars. And I read some reviews of albums, and got told by “‘critics” (I use that term loosely) that they were “badass,” “hot,” “sexy,” “tripped-out,” and “freaky.”

On a few occasions, a reviewer might mention the instruments involved in the making of an album—but usually skipped these apparently tedious details. I couldn’t find any cogent analysis of how these instruments were played. (No, I don’t count “totally shreds” as cogent analysis.) I didn’t read a single discussion of song structure, harmony, or arrangement techniques."

I was on the board of St. Vincent's School in the earlier part of this century and helped re-build it twice when it was flattened by a couple of hurricanes. I'm glad to see the Presiding Bishop's office arranging for something practical.

Plus this:
"The directive from ISIS, citing the Islamic concept of "dhimma", requires Christians in the city to pay tax of around half an ounce (14g) of pure gold in exchange for their safety.
BBC map of Raqqa and Damascus in Syria
It says Christians must not make renovations to churches, display crosses or other religious symbols outside churches, ring church bells or pray in public."

When I attended the General Theological Seminary in New York City, over thirty years ago [!], the institution also served as the eastern seminary for the Armenian Orthodox Church in the US. Due to the many similarities between our branches of Christianity [Celtic Christianity is older than the Church of Rome; Armenia was the first nation to convert, before the Roman Empire did], it was a handsome fit. Also, the Armenians, many of whom were enjoying their first stay in the United States, were great friends and classmates as they were gregarious, generous, and full of life.Two things I learned about them: They have a remarkably low regard for the Turks [see "Armenian Genocide"] and a terrific veneration for St. Gregory the Illuminator. The former is a matter of history, the latter of history and faith:In the 3rd Century, Armenia served as a buffer state between the empires of Rome and Persia, and was often caught between the empires' competing desires. Gregory was born circa 257 and, while an infant, his father...er...pro-actively participated in national politics by assassinating the King of Persia. In result, family friends carried Gregory away for his protection to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was baptized and raised as a Christian. About 280 he returned to Armenia as a missionary and anchorite. Although he was originally treated severely, eventually, by patience and through sound preaching and example, he brought King Tiridates III and his people to the Christian faith. A generation later, Gregory was consecrated as the first bishop of Armenia. He died about 332. Almighty God, whose will it is to be glorified in your saints, and who raised up your servant Gregory the Illuminator to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Shine, we pray, in our hearts, that we also in our generation may show forth your praise, who called us out of darkness into your marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

If you have ever traveled eastbound through Middletown on Route 66 [not the fabled one that begins, or ends, at the Santa Monica Pier, but the more prosaic namesake that laces across the Nutmeg State] and have come to a stop at the intersection of Route 9, there is a house that sits on the right side of the road named DeKoven House. You may note that there is an historic plaque on it that cannot, alas, be easily read from the road. That's a pity, because it is significant in the life of one of the most important Episcopalians in our ecclesial history.

Connecticut's James DeKoven was born in 1831 to a prominent maritime family and ordained at the age of 24. His early service to the Church was as a professor at Nashotah House, an Episcopal Church seminary in the wilds of 19th century Wisconsin. Later, he would also serve as Warden of Racine College, an Episcopal college on the frontier.

What makes DeKoven special, at least in the eyes of clergy such as your rector and the shrinking number of his compatriots in liturgy and theology, is that he was a champion and theological apologist for those who believe that the more intentional the Celebration of the Holy Communion, the more purposeful its experience and result.

For example, DeKoven emphasized the "real presence" of the Christ in the bread and wine, not in some superstitious sense, but as an obvious reaction to the teachings of the New Testament. To highlight this understanding, DeKoven resurrected for the American Episcopal Church practices such as bowing, kneeling, the use of candles, the making of the sign of the cross, and the "manual acts" engaged by the celebrating clergy [as seen every Sunday behind the altar at Christ Church].

Naturally, true innovation is so prized in institutions that DeKoven was labeled a "ritualist", slandered a dozen different ways for his "Romish" practices, and twice denied the office of bishop, despite having been elected such by the Dioceses of Wisconsin and Illinois, respectively. That notion of respecting the dignity of every human being can be a fickle thing.

However, his liturgical theology carried with it a logic and, not to be discounted, great ability to use non-verbal imagery to carry those understandings that are beyond words. Hence, he is recognized on this day for his contribution to our common life and, like many of the true innovators of the Church, his providential avoidance of the limitations of the office of bishop.

He died at the age of 48, after teaching that day's classes at Racine College.

Almighty and everlasting God, the source and perfection of all virtues, who didst inspire thy servant James de Koven to do what is right and to preach what is true: Grant that all ministers and stewards of thy mysteries may afford to thy faithful people, by word and example, the knowledge of thy grace; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever.

The story of Noah's Ark is found in the sacred literature of three of the world's religions, so it is familiar to 54% of the world's population; over 38 billion people. This would seem an ideal platform from which to convince people to spend money to see a big-budget movie of it. Surprisingly, in order to make it "popular", its director resisted having God mentioned in the script.

Although I was once a little annoyed that someone put lost dog flyers on all of the cars in the parish parking lot during Palm Sunday services. Where I live, that dog was already a predator's meal and, naturally, I had to clean up the discarded leaflets.

[For those wondering: "Style guides seem to disagree with dictionaries about the proper spelling for handbills: “flier” or “flyer.” Supposedly, “flier” is the American spelling and “flyer” is the British spelling. That’s what Garner’s Modern American Usage claims, and that claim is backed up by the Associated Press (an American organization), which recommends “flier,” and The Economist (a British publication), which recommends “flyer.”]

Rand is a dull writer, as is Smith. There are whole portions of Melville's classic that one could skip, unless one is planning a career in whale processing. I actually liked Joyce.

Then there's this quotation that made my day:

"Take Neil DeGrasse Tyson as one example, whom the internet loves with an unrestrained passion usually reserved for fluffy cat videos. He was asked a few years ago on reddit to share his recommended reading list. Given his brief commentary on the eight books he recommends, he seems largely unfamiliar with the actual content of the works by Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, Niccolo Machiavelli, and particularly Sun Tzu, who views the avoidance of killing as the best form of warfare."

Almighty God, you called Cuthbert from following the
flock to be a shepherd of your people: Mercifully grant that, as he sought in
dangerous and remote places those who had erred and strayed from your ways, so
we may seek the indifferent and the lost, and lead them back to you; through
Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, for ever and ever. Amen.

I might add that as of the 21st century, he has also become the unofficial patron of step-fathers.

O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up
Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin
mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to
your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and
the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Tuesday, March 18, 2014

When growing affluence, Christian evangelism, and
the formidable Roman highway system encouraged greater travel to Jerusalem
during the days leading up to Easter Sunday, the bishop, in order to give the
pilgrims who were filling his city something constructive and reverent to do,
developed a series of liturgies specific to the days of Holy Week, each based
on an event leading to the resurrection.
So popular did these proper liturgies become that pilgrims brought them
back to their home congregations upon their return, thus ensuring that, over
time, these liturgical practices would become universally engaged. Thus, Cyril is recognized as the creator of the Holy Week liturgies: Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Great Vigil of Easter.

Strengthen, O Lord, the bishops of your Church in their
special calling to be teachers and ministers of the Sacraments, so that they,
like your servant Cyril of Jerusalem, may effectively instruct your people in
Christian faith and practice; and that we, taught by them, may enter more fully
into the celebration of the Paschal mystery; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who
lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Amen.

My wife mentioned something that I had noticed, but only at a subliminal level. For the first time in a few years or so, no one called, wrote, or spoke to me of a complaint for a week now. No complaint about church music, ice on the walkways, a burned out light bulb, the cleaning service, the parish website/newsletter/order of service/Facebook page/etc. I suppose I would hear complaints about The Coracle, too, if more than five or six members of my parish actually read it.

I had forgotten how peaceful the world could be. I'm hoping that people have given up complaining for Lent, but that may be wishful thinking. Maybe, though, we've become aware of how fortunate we are and are looking at the world through that prism, rather than as a place of perpetual disappointment.

St. Gregory the Great, officially known as Pope Gregory I, earns a place on our calendar as he was the Bishop of Rome before our schism with the Roman Catholic Church and was an innovative leader and creative personality. He is the composer of the eponymous Gregorian setting of the chant and was also responsible for ensuring that the British Isles were well-supplied with good, faithful, organized missionaries, thus enabling the orthodoxy and consistency of Anglican theology.

St. Gregory, born at Rome about the year 540, was the son of Gordianus, a wealthy senator, who later renounced the world and became one of the seven deacons of Rome. After he had acquired the usual thorough education, Emperor Justin the Younger appointed him, in 574, Chief Magistrate of Rome, though he was only thirty-four years of age.

After the death of his father, he built six monasteries in Sicily and founded a seventh in his own house in Rome, which became the Benedictine Monastery of St. Andrew. Here, he himself assumed the monastic habit in 575, at the age of thirty-five.

After the death of Pelagius, St. Gregory was chosen Pope by the unanimous consent of priests and people. Now began those labors which merited for him the title of Great. His zeal extended over the entire known world, he was in contact with all the Churches of Christendom and, in spite of his bodily sufferings, and innumerable labors, he found time to compose a great number of works. He is known above all for his magnificent contributions to the Liturgy of the Mass and Office.

Almighty and merciful God, you raised up Gregory of Rome to be a servant of the servants of God, and inspired him to send missionaries to preach the Gospel to the English people: Preserve in your Church the catholic and apostolic faith they taught, that your people, being fruitful in every good work, may receive the crown of glory that never fades away; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

The other day I linked to the rather weird story of how straw "Christians" were being set up by a pastor's website enabling anonymous people to slag the faith. I probably left out the editorial comment I just made, but that's the way it looked to me.

Sunday, March 9, 2014

Volunteers who have begun to "burn-out" in their activities, whether in a religious or secular organization, usually manifest a majority of these symptoms:

1. Feelings that they are perpetually under-appreciated.

2. Sensation that work cannot be completed, or completed to satisfaction, without their participation and presence.

3. Finding or expecting slights and insults in interactions with other, often in innocuous circumstances.

4. Chronic complaints about leadership personnel.

5. Cynical or callous comments about other volunteers.

6. Perpetual sense of crisis.

7. Physical, emotional, or mental exhaustion.

8. Overreaction to minor circumstances.

9. Increasing triangulation in communication patterns.

10. Sense that the volunteer activity is now a chore.

Of course there are also physical or psychological experiences on the part of the volunteer that can exacerbate burn-out, ranging from addictive disorder to a lack of parental support in childhood. Volunteers and their supervisors are always urged to be aware of these signs and work to address them directly as burn-out among volunteers can have a rapid morbidity.

March 7: Perpetua [181-206] and her Companions
From the original edition of Lesser Feasts and Fasts -

Early in the third century, the emperor Septimius Severus decreed that all persons should sacrifice to the divinity of the emperor. There was no way that a Christian, confessing faith in the one Lord Jesus Christ, could do this. Vibia Perpetua was a young widow, mother of an infant and owner of several slaves, including Felicitas and Revocatus. With two other young Carthaginians, Secundulus and Saturninus, they were catechumens preparing for baptism. Perpetua and her companions were arrested and held in prison under miserable conditions. They received baptism during their imprisonment. Felicitas, pregnant when arrested, bore her child in prison.

In a document attributed to Perpetua, we learn of visions she had in prison. One was of a ladder to heaven, which she climbed to reach a large garden; another was of her brother who had died when young of a dreadful disease, but was now well and drinking the water of life; that last was of herself as a warrior battling the Devil and defeating him to win entrance to the gate of life. “And I awoke, understanding that I should fight, not with beasts, but with the Devil…So much about me up to the day before the games; let him who will write of what happened then.” At the public hearing before the proconsul, she refused even the entreaties of her aged father, saying, “I am a Christian.”

Perpetua and her companions were martyred for their faith in Christ in the year 202 or 203 on March 7.

O God the King of saints, you strengthened your servants Perpetua and Felicitas and their companions to make a good confession, staunchly resisting, for the cause of Christ, the claims of human affection, and encouraging one another in their time of trial: Grant that we who cherish their blessed memory may share their pure and steadfast faith, and win with them the palm of victory; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Remember the old surfing adage: You learn something from every wave. During Lent, The Coracle will offer select quotes from philosophers and theologians, chiefly the contemporary philosopher, Roger Scruton, for the next few weeks.

During one of the moribund periods in church history, namely during the first half of the 18th century when [surprise!] usage of the Book of Common Prayer had fallen into an indifferent lassitude, the Wesleys, along with fellow students at Oxford, began to re-discover prayerful harmony through adherence to the Prayer Book's structure. Because of this, they were referred to by their fellow students as "Methodists".

As time went by, they graduated and moved to the colony of Georgia, where John served as an Anglican missionary and Charles as assistant to the governor. Neither found those positions particularly fulfilling. Then, within days of one another, the brothers received a moment of epiphany. As powerful as the intellect could be in proclaiming the Gospel, so, too, was to be honored the emotional response one may elicit. Thus began this evangelical strain within our tradition.

John was the preacher and Charles the hymn-writer. John believed in the use of lay preachers, sometimes ill-educated, to create a Paul-Peter type of proclamation dualism. While this practice may have caused the Wesley's homiletics professors to shudder, it could be effective. Consider the following anecdote:

The early Methodist meetings were often led by lay preachers with very limited education. On one occasion, such a preacher took as his text Luke 19:21, "Lord, I feared thee, because thou art an austere man." Not knowing the word "austere," he thought that the text spoke of "an oyster man." He spoke about the work of those who retrieve oysters from the sea-bed. The diver plunges down from the surface, cut off from his natural environment, into bone-chilling water. He gropes in the dark, cutting his hands on the sharp edges of the shells. Now he has the oyster, and kicks back up to the surface, up to the warmth and light and air, clutching in his torn and bleeding hands the object of his search. So Christ descended from the glory of heaven into the squalor of earth, into sinful human society, in order to retrieve humans and bring them back up with Him to the glory of heaven, His torn and bleeding hands a sign of the value He has placed on the object of His quest. Twelve men were converted that evening. Afterwards, someone complained to Wesley about the inappropriateness of allowing preachers who were too ignorant to know the meaning of the texts they were preaching on. Wesley, simply said, "Never mind, the Lord got a dozen oysters tonight."*

Charles wrote over 600 hymns, including such favorites as "Oh for a thousand tongues to sing".

The Methodist Society was intended to be a part of the Anglican/Episcopal Church as a place for evangelical zeal and teaching. So ill-received was it by the bishops, yet so popular with laity and clergy with common sense, that the Methodist Church eventually developed into its own denomination.